Joanne Jaccaci

AUBURN - Joanne Hobbs Spear Jaccaci, formerly of New Gloucester, Maine, passed away peacefully at Schooner Estate residential care facility in Auburn, Maine after a long battle with Parkinson's disease on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2018.  Her husband, August T. Jaccaci Jr, was by her side.

Joanne was born Sept. 14, 1944 in Saco Maine, daughter of Elmer and Estelle Hobbs and lived on their farm on Watson Mill Road. Her father Elmer, was well known as a local artist, and her mother Estelle had moved to Saco from New York City after her marriage to Elmer.  Joanne had an early love of learning and reading, and spent many happy hours sitting in the big maple tree in the front yard of their farm reading a book.  She loved school and excelled and rarely received any grade less than an A. She attended Saco schools and graduated from Thornton Academy in 1962 as salutatorian of her class.  She was well-liked and active in Thornton Academy and was in chorus throughout her time there.  She had a beautiful singing voice and music was of huge importance to her throughout her life and she and her two sisters, Patricia Bedell and Barbara Storck, would often sing together and formed a singing group in the 1980s called the Round Tuit's, as it took them so long to get around to forming this group! Joanne won a music award for her singing her senior year at Thornton.

After her marriage in 1963, she had two daughters, Lynne Spear Marzilli, currently of New Gloucester, and Vicki Spear currently of Kennebunk.  After her divorce, she raised her two daughters alone, while putting herself through college at the University of Southern Maine where she received her Master's degree in Education in 1974, graduating Summa Cum Laude.  Education was the passion of Joanne's life and something she continued while working at USM for the next 20 years.  She was a teacher and a mentor to so many people and created tutoring classes to assist remedial readers in improving their reading skills and brought university level classes to the Windham correctional facility as well. She created the Department of Continuing Adult Education at USM, which offered non-credited, and credited courses to people who wished to attend school for the love of learning.  She implemented and ran a Women in Management conference for 15 years that was attended by thousands of women from all over the state of Maine, bringing people such as Garrison Keilor and Elizabeth Kubler Ross to speak.  She was described by a friend as "a visionary and a leader for women's empowerment in our state" and that her conferences she created "have never seen a parallel in Maine since." Joanne formed a Senior College to offer continued learning to seniors and was also the first educator to bring computer education to USM.  She met her husband Gus in 1995 when she brought him as a speaker to one of her conferences. As they sat in a circle with others, her shoe flew off her foot and into his lap, and he knelt and called her his Cinderella and put it back on her foot. They married on Aug. 28, 1999.  She retired from the university shortly after due to ill health.

She was an accomplished writer, and self-published a book entitled "Communiversity: How to form and grow 21st Century Learning Communities." She was also a poet and wrote beautiful poetry.  After her retirement, she and her husband Gus created Unity Scholars as a way to spread their message of love, unity and peace to the State of Maine and the rest of the world. She was active in local politics and helped found the New Gloucester Democratic Committee. She had enormous compassion, empathy, generosity of spirit and was open minded and kind hearted and would do almost anything to help those in need.  She offered English as a Second Language courses to immigrants and personally took it upon herself to help them assimilate into US culture. The immigrants became a part of her and her daughter's family. Her home was a safe haven for some of her daughter Vicki's friends while going through difficult times.  Joanne was always there to listen with an open heart and mind and offer sound and loving advice with no judgement.

She will be greatly missed by her husband August, her daughters Lynne Marzilli and her husband Francis, their children Ross and his wife Carie, Angela Marzilli and her wife Jamie, Gina Marzilli, and Rocco Marzilli and his wife Kristin and all their children Reggie, Marlee, Milo, Josie and Avi;  daughter Vicki Spear, and her children Connor and Mckenna Patterson.  Her two sisters Patricia Bedell and Barbara Storck, and many loving nieces and nephews.  She is predeceased by her parents, Elmer and Estelle Hobbs, and two nieces, Linda Bedell and Wendy Bedell, and a nephew, Brian Bedell.

Visitation will be from noon to 2 p.m. with at Service at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018, at Cote Funeral Home Chapel, 87 James St., Saco.

Interment will be private in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Saco.

To view Joanne's memorial page or leave an online condolence, please visit www.cotefuneralhome.com